Mr. Chair, over the past year the Department of National Defence has entered into several memoranda of understanding with other nations to build upon relations between the host nation and Canada. Such partnerships offer not only the Canadian Forces but the Canadian population in general cost-effective measures to provide logistical support to our forces. I am referring specifically to the partnership forged with the government of Germany.
Could the minister provide this committee of the whole with more information about how those arrangements are made and why it is so important to have partnerships of this nature?